Boards›Gameplay

open letter to Riot; longtime player, extremely dissatisfied with the game's current state.

Shrek Luigi·3/24/2019, 8:26:56 PM·68 votes·17,572 views

I play norms pretty much exclusively, been playing this game for several years now, but I can't cope with how bad matchmaking is right now & I am considering quitting for good.

there is no point in playing a competitive multiplayer game if one can't expect at-least-somewhat-consistent matchups. no matter how well I play my lane, no matter how well I try to coordinate my team--most games feel like they are decided by the people who don't know how to play. this goes beyond losing trades or fights--at least half of the people I play with just farm and stall constantly even beyond the 30 minute mark, never pressuring objectives or capitalizing on whichever short leads we manage to get. if I play adc, it's pretty much a coinflip as to whether my lanemate will even reach a vision score on par with my teammates--let alone an actual support who wards as per usual--it's a coinflip as to whether my jungler will watch the minimap (or chat when, god forbid, it gets to the point where I have to beg for a gank after getting steamrolled by 4 ppl) and help deal with pressure from other positions, and it's a coinflip as to whether the toplaner or mid I got stuck with give upwards of 10 kills in the first 20 mins and make the match uwinnable unless someone on my team won their coinflips and snowballed on a ridiculous scale. and it's not just that they perform poorly; a lot of these people are downright hostile.

i don't care what Riot's reasoning is for altering how matchmaking has worked over the course of all these years, but it's never felt as bad as it's been over the course of the last 2 years or so. I don't think it's a coincidence that Riot's push for shorter queue-times pretty much chronologically runs in-parallel with the poor player-experience of norms as of late, and it honestly feels to me like Riot cares more about luring more people to this game than actually trying to retain their playerbase.....because in spite of all these criticisms I read on the boards (and Riot subsequently having to come out with a new Gameplay+ board in an attempt to gag those criticisms and more-thoroughly police boards-content, which naturally failed) I can't help but notice on how Riot's doubled-down on it's ad-game/how Riot has to drone about how many people play the game in every single one of those ads to validate their own standing versus other games, instead of the player-experience of the game itself. you guys invest a lot of time and effort into promoting your game, and it feels like you spend absolutely no time at all addressing the actual issues (both from a gameplay and more broadbased, player-oriented perspective) that have plagued this game for ages, so I'm done for the next long while.

league of legends might only be lucrative intellectual-property to Riot and Tencent but it also was once a really fun game for the rest of us. please put more of a priority into finding a better equilibrium for game-balance, fix matchmaking, and stop putting player-reception and criticism on the backburner. there is a reason why this game is not the most played multiplayer-game in the world anymore, and it's not for the reasons you seem to think.

62 Comments

BigFBear3/24/2019, 10:36:48 PM31 votes

I wonder if they changed matchmaking algorithm because they try to counteract declining number of players or if they did it for other reasons.

Fact is: Matchmaking this season is the worst I've ever seen. And I play since Season 3.

And this isn't even just a feeling. You can literally look it up on op.gg Gold1, Plat, unranked and Dia4 players in one game with winrates between 45% and 90%. The biggest problem (imo) is, that the algorithm needs too long to detect the real Elo of smurfs. Often it's these Gold1 or unranked Players with 70%-90% winrate who destroy everything in Plat1/Dia4 games because they are actually from Dia1 or Master. Riot have to do something against this Smurf problem.

edit: Btw. My queue time as Jungler EUW went from 1:30 in S8 and Pre-season to 0-20 seconds in Season 9. 80% shorter queue time but therefore also 80% crappier matchmaking. GG WP Riot, that's what I wanted...

Kaisha3/24/2019, 11:21:13 PM26 votes

RIOT doesn't care. They really don't give two shts. The only thing they care about is $$ so unless everyone stops buying crap, nothing will happen. If, even for just 1 week, everyone stopped buying skins/RP/etc... they'd change their tune so fast you'd have whiplash.

LegendaryOtaku693/25/2019, 9:53:18 AM13 votes

Just quit the game like I did almost 2 months ago. I started playing Apex Legends with friends and it's a lot more fun than League. LoL isn't fun like it used to be back in season 4 when I started to play the game, Riot Games keeps fking up every season...

Nea1043/25/2019, 2:16:28 AM8 votes

November 2017 (pre-Season8): things were already in this state and Riot got warned thousands of times about it. March 2019, several patches into Season 9: it just got worse and worse.

They just keep sinking.

Darwin Award3/25/2019, 4:56:38 AM7 votes

Don't make widespreading accusations you can't likely prove (why player base is declining etc.)... Just a tip, because it hamstrings your entire point and makes you sound like any other person griping on the board.

Your discontent is related to the requests of other players (who's ant shorter q times) in the past, both long past and recent. I don't know what the algorithm is for normal, but let's certainly agree that it's flawed. At the time of pairing up with a master support, I was low platinum and probably bronze on my off role I was playing.

Norms matchmaking is very erratic.. As has been said by another, perhaps consider ranked. If norms were matched "as thoroughly" as ranked (barring reset ranked memes), queue times would drag and people would gripe because they can't even hop into a casual match quickly enough.

This might be isolated, but playing Apex for instance, I'd say I queue for 15 seconds maximum before the game starts. That's relatively to be expected of large games; the lower the time, the better.

As an aside, business practice (and modern gaming trends) strongly favors new customers over existing because they are more likely to pay money, because old customers will likely put up with change and/or "quit" but return later for plenty of reasons like nostalgia, friends, vested interest, etc. (and have already, likely, made all the purchases they will).

The chief way to satisfy both camps (longer q times quality matches/shorter q times less quality matches) is theoretically to increase the player base, which THEORETICALLY brings in more players of various skill, which would match you appropriately. In theory.

In 2019, approaching customer support making a bunch of noise and claiming youre a long gime customer doesn't mean much. The common ground is the most ideal, especially ahen there are already "fixes" in place like plauing ranked. Really, you're just describing ELO Hell.

mack91123/25/2019, 3:27:17 PM6 votes

If you want to play the game competitively you have to play ranked.

MysticShaker3/25/2019, 8:33:15 AM6 votes

Long time board reader: They don't care. E-sport is still more profitable for them ( and way easier to hide it from taxes) than money from RP so they will not change anything about direction of this game. And asian playerbase like shorter games with big burst dmg so...

Ahri Baka3/25/2019, 3:10:48 PM4 votes

I don't understand why is this getting upvoted

You're literally admitting that you are mad over riot for matching you with Silvers in Silver Elo You are literally mad over not getting matched with Good people that can win their lanes and carry the game and know how to ward in Silver Elo , Hello ? This is Silver , most of people don't know how to play the game well and it depends on Luck anyway

booleader13/25/2019, 8:57:18 AM3 votes

I agree. Matchmaking especially at ranked solo/duo sucks. I am a really good midlaner whom never loses lane and pushes for objectives still have lost zed matches when i had almost perfect kdas when 1 player is trying to save game and bot having 0/12 at 15 mins. While jg dive at lvl 3 .top dies to the champ he counters.This doesnt stop here. I had 20 lose streak. Can u imagine a 20 lose streak even the the noobest player on earth wont have a 20 lose streak . U wanna know how i had that streak ?simple just determined matches . Ally team less thab lvl 40 vs teams higher than 200. Can u imagine me suffering through these matches trying to carry team with zed midlaner. I wanted to quit game after so many years and i did after i got banned from having toxic duos and troll duos whom literally can ban anyone they want . However i gave this game another shot after 6 months . It still has its bad matchmaking nothing changed even though i clearly reformed. But this game needs better matchmaking cause its totally tilting to 1 v9 everymatch and be lonely every match .

PapaGreg213/25/2019, 8:51:29 PM2 votes

I would quit. I quit this season and go on the boards once in a while at work just out of interest. I have gotten to play about 30 other video games I normally wouldn't have had time for because of league and have had a lot more fun. League is an addiction that isn't even balanced around people like you. It's made for esports players now. I used to play tank junglers (is that even a thing still?) and last season only 4 champs were viable and the jungle was basically worth nothing at all points in the game so you had no option but to constantly harass lanes. Riot just wants people to get blown up and huge amounts of interaction to get their LCS ratings up.

Fork New England3/25/2019, 5:18:37 AM2 votes

I'd you really want to play and enjoy the game all the time you really need a group of people to play with. That way even if you're getting stomped, it's with friends or people that can let a loss roll off and move on.

Salty people, people that give up easily and go Afk after dying twice, etc is why I rarely play normals. I'm leveling up this account to get refamiliar with the game after not playing since season 7, looking forward to ranked, if only for the rofls.

Starcraft243ver3/25/2019, 6:20:04 PM2 votes

I play norms pretty much exclusively, been playing this game for several years now, but I can't cope with how bad matchmaking is right now & I am considering quitting for good.

there is no point in playing a competitive multiplayer game if one can't expect at-least-somewhat-consistent matchups.

Wait wat.

Ice Boy 2143/25/2019, 5:45:21 AM2 votes

That's one of the reasons why after season 6, I bought enough champs to play ranked just to get out of the bad Norms match ups. I only play norms with a 5 man teams just so we all know what's going on, which is fun, but trying to solo or duo, sometimes even trio into norms games, you'll get that one guy that'll refuse to teamplay or think their hot stuff cause their a yasuo or yi main then go 1/12 then blame everyone else but themselves.

To be honest tho, ranked match ups aren't that much better and getting placed in Iron 3 this season when I got placed in Bronze 3 & 1 the last two seasons make that fat even more aparent. Low elo is basically norms+ and according to my buddy that's in gold 1, its just as bad through most of gold. Going duo queue with a jungler main does help but having a bad ADC or bad mid laner sucks just as much because it kinda forces the jungler to baby sit them constantly rather than roam the whole map and help everyone.

Also, the thing that I utterly HATE the most is that there's no restriction on player latency or internet connection for ranked. WHY FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING THAT IS HOLY ARE PLAYERS WITH 500+ PING ALLOWED TO QUEUE AND PLAY IN RANKED!?!?!?!?! 100ms or lower ping should be a reasonable restriction for a COMPETITVE game. It doesn't matter for norms but PLEASE ranked needs some kind of standard in place. I'd rather sit in queue for 10 minutes than sit in a 30 minute game that we get steam rolled and two people refuse to surrender in a game that's obviously only winnable if the two strongest opposing players DC'd suddenly.

14daysuspensionk3/25/2019, 8:13:09 AM2 votes

I'm somewhat satissfied, managed to grind all 3 M7 tokens for Elise in just one day.

Craft Zeppelin3/25/2019, 9:27:50 AM2 votes

I totally agree, I never experienced my ALLIES to be more hostile than my enemy. Like what on earths going on

No flash no life3/27/2019, 5:58:37 AM1 votes

Putting the balance of gameplay aside (which is in itself another big mess of problems), the matchmaking has been an ongoing issue for a while, and I just want to clarify where I think the problems are.

We say the matchmaking isn't balanced, but that doesn't get us anywhere because riot says it is balanced - and it actually is, in a very undesirable way.

For example, if I ask you to make me the most handsome person in the class, I'm asking you to do me a complete makeover. I didn't ask you to murder every one of my classmates.

That's the kind of destructive approach riot is doing. Games are matched to give players even standing to win - more if they put effort into it. How it should be done, though, is matching 5 golds with 5 golds to make it even. Not bloody 3 bronze 1 silver 1 plat against 5 gold, this isn't some simple math evening out the numbers of mmr on both sides - it shouldn't be, but I feel like riot thinks otherwise.

Edit: I know it's impossible to achieve perfectly evened match, but in the past riot at least aimed for it. Now it's moving in the opposite direction.

The second issue is mmr. We've seen it, had it happen to us, those games where ranks of your teammates are utterly outmatched by ranks of your opponents, and it's been answered that while their ranks may seem apart, the mmr values are in fact close enough to have these players in the same game.

My question then, is that if the mmr values of a silver II and diamond V (using my last year's game as example) are close enough for them to be matched and lane against each other... Don't you think there's something goddamn wrong with how mmr is calculated?

saltofsaltness3/25/2019, 9:33:53 AM1 votes

So yeah, I know your pain man. LoL was the game I played on regular basis, but a while ago I got a team so bad and blaming that I snapped. So here i am writing this with 2 weeks ban for rudeness. GGWP Riot

Pumice Power3/25/2019, 2:13:28 PM1 votes

I also just play normals because ranked has an even more uncomfortable vibe to it, but I know what you mean.

My cousin has serveral thousands of games on his account as we both started together in early 2010. While I created many new accounts - mostly name characters before the server split when it was still possible to use cyrilic letters - he stayed on this very same account.

He lost 7 games with absolutely atricious "matches" that made my jaw drop.

Belive it or not, but I am pestering the support since many months of how bad the "Matches" are. I show them that I am far below the 50% winrate and still get unwinnable games. I also show them that the "matchmaking" put people with low winrates together vs high winrates. My last few games contained a random Level 13 vs Level 100. The problem is that these low level people fed like crazy. So the MMR in the background does not quite work.

And now here is the long-term problem: If the machmaking sucks so bad that every game is literally everything but about your skill, your personal rating - the MMR - is getting distorted so much that it can't work by logic. And this useless number is then used to create more "matches".

Here is the deal: Support - Blood Equinox - live chat says he can't do anything and redirects me to a "specialst" - which gives me pre-written text that tells me bullocks.

The German support goes back and forth and eventually says that I don't even have the [MMR] numbers. I told him this is because RIOT rig the games and then he evaded and closed the ticket..

Here are some pretty recent prime examples of the "matches":

https://imgur.com/T3GFnzp.jpg[/img]

https://imgur.com/GOn9yn1.jpg[/img]

https://imgur.com/OFeRIBJ.jpg[/img]

The last picture gives me AIDS and ebola at the same time. This 13-death Yasuo - Level 13 - on my side vs Level 150 and Level 130 on the enemy side. I mean, this is nothing but rigged and manipulated.

Just a few that I found in my screenshot folder. No need to show more.

Do you see that? I am Level 50 and get random Level 13 with Heal and Ghost in there that just feed non-stop. What kind of "match" or "matchmaking" is that? Imagine you are playing basketball with your equally skilled friends of the same age and size. Suddenly, your "team" consists of a toddler. Welcome to my games.

This atriciously bad "match quality" is causing toxicity. I already got used to 20-minute penalties, because I do not play games with heal/ghost trash that goes 0/10/0 for no reason.

I am already far behind W/L of 50%, and the more I lose, the worse my trash noobs, sorry, "team mates" get. This is the pure definition of ELO hell.

hotarse3/25/2019, 3:29:23 PM1 votes

People have been saying this basically for the last 3 years. You're late to the game, real late. How'd you hold over for this long?

xDogMeatx3/25/2019, 6:42:31 PM1 votes

Kled died to me several times in a row he granted "normal" kill gold to me while his team was ahead in gold numbers. Granting 274 per kill or something didn't even go down either I'm questioning the rubberbanding effect per kill. It used to be 274 then 150 finally lower than that.

ModRowanstar3/25/2019, 9:38:16 PM1 votes

At one point I played nearly 7 games in a row, losing sometimes due to my own faults and sometimes to others. This was October 2018 when I was trying to achieve a pumpkin kitty icon (which I did). League has an interesting relationship with its players. We love it, but because we love it, losing is frustrating. When I lose at chess, I already know I am bad, but at least I am able to fight back. For me losing isnt the issue. It is losing repeatedly and being unable to fight back. So now my suggestion: play bots matches on intermediate. practice champions and as you win, build your confidence. Then pop back into pvp and see if that does any good. I agree pvp is frustrating because there maybe people who aren't cooperating but there is always a way.

booNflesruoYnaB3/26/2019, 5:30:07 AM1 votes

agree 100%